The Duke Buys a Bride, Page 4

  His bearing was almost dignified. Too dignified. As though he held himself above everyone else. This place, these people. Yes. That would even include her.

  At last he signed. First the document and then the ledger as directed. The scratch of quill on parchment seemed loud. And then it was done. Documented for posterity.

  Like chattel, she was conveyed from one owner to another.

  She thought of Papa then and it almost hurt. He couldn’t have imagined it being like this. He couldn’t have known the indignity of it all . . . the potential peril.

  She tried to step forward and peer at his name so she would know who she had bound herself to, know what name she now bore that would never fit. But he stepped back, blocking her view.

  Mr. Hines’s son quickly sanded the parchments and then folded them, slipping each inside an envelope with neat movements.

  Mr. Hines took up both envelopes. “A bill of sale fer each of ye,” he pronounced. “Ye’ll want tae keep those. Although ’tis a matter of public record now.” He winked at Mr. Beard and clapped him on the back. “Yer a free man once again, Beard. Enjoy yer bachelorhood.”

  Mrs. McPherson was suddenly there. Or perhaps she always had been lurking close. She squealed and clapped her hands, pushing her way into their circle. Clearly he wouldn’t be a bachelor for long.

  “Fifty quid! Mr. Beard! Och, wot a feat! Never tae believe! Wot a sum fer a bag of skin and bones such as our Alyse!” Her gaze flicked over Alyse dismissively.

  Alyse bit back a burning retort for the old hag and shifted awkwardly on her feet, aware of the stranger’s scrutiny and uncomfortable beneath it.

  “Come.” The stranger—her husband—directed.

  She still did not know his name. She had no idea what to call him.

  Before she turned to follow, Mr. Beard reached for her arm. “Alyse.”

  She stopped and looked at him, bracing herself for his farewell, hoping that she maintained her composure and didn’t lash out at him as every ounce her being willed her to do.

  Her blood was pumping hard in her veins and her head was spinning already from everything that had transpired. She didn’t know how to react if he dared to apologize . . . although she was most certainly owed that small gesture after years of loyal service to his family. He may have given her a roof over her head, but she had earned twofold every courtesy he had ever extended her. She doubted she could accept such an apology graciously.

  “’Ere ye go. Dinna forget this.”

  She looked down. Mr. Beard extended her battered valise for her to take. There was no farewell. No forthcoming apology—and as much as she didn’t want to hear such a thing from him, she was also, irrationally, angered that he did not care about saying good-bye. He didn’t want to apologize.

  “Oh,” she said, the word strange on her numb lips.

  She accepted the bag, nodding mutely as her clammy fingers gripped the handle. Turning back around, she saw that her new husband waited. Her eyes briefly met his before looking away.

  He pressed on and she followed, adjusting her grip on her bag and walking stalwartly, shoulders squared, chin high.

  Mrs. McPherson wrinkled her nose as they passed. “Phew. ’Opefully ’e ’as enough blunt left fer a bath.”

  Alyse followed behind her new husband, eyeing him carefully, noting the hard set of his shoulders. He did not turn around, however. Nor did she. There would be no looking back. There was only forward. Only the future and she needed to focus on that. On getting that right. She’d endured enough. Even though Yardley had failed her and would not be in her life, she could still carve out a future that was worth something. She wouldn’t give up until she had that for herself.

  The crowd parted a path for his tall figure. She didn’t know if it was his intimidating size or the foul smell of him, but everyone gave him a wide berth.

  They departed the square, walking a short distance until he reached a young boy holding the reins of an impressive gelding with a gleaming black coat that her fingers itched to caress.

  “Here, lad.” Her husband tossed him a coin. Husband. She blinked at the strangeness of that. At the wrongness.

  “Thank ye, sir,” the boy exclaimed before darting away to buy a treat with his sudden earnings.

  The man pulled himself upon his mount with ease and then peered down at her from his great perch, his deep blue eyes inscrutable.

  She looked up at him, hoping he did not intend for her to ride astride with him. She was loath to press her person against his rank body. She would rather walk.

  “I’ll take your valise.” He extended a hand. She lifted her bag up to him. He secured it to his saddle. “Follow me,” he commanded in those cultivated tones before turning his mount around.

  She hesitated only a moment before moving after him. For now, she would obey. She would be the perfect image of submission. Temporarily. Until she devised a plan.

  As difficult as it was for her, she would bide her time. Assess. Strategize.

  He was not difficult to keep pace with. The lane was crowded and more narrow than usual with stalls and vendors erected along the edges. Her stomach grumbled at the aroma of roasting meats and fresh baked breads. She really should have eaten more this morning . . . but then she might have retched during the awfulness of that auction. Nellie had been right. Never in her life had she felt so degraded. Damn Yardley for abandoning her. She would never forgive him.

  The horse ambled along, unable to move very quickly, but it was still no small embarrassment to walk down the street of her village, meekly plodding behind the man who had just purchased her.

  Eyes and indiscreet whispers followed her. It all added to her humiliation.

  Perhaps it was a good thing he was from out of town and they would be going somewhere else. Some place where people would not know the demeaning details of their beginning. Bitter bile welled in her throat as she grappled with that fact that she was bound to this man. At least until she figured out how to break free.

  Soon the busy street thinned out and they were at the edge of the village on the road north. He pulled to the side and dismounted. They stood face-to-face. She had to crane her neck a bit to look up at him and she wasn’t a particularly short female. She and Mr. Beard had been of like height and Yardley was only a little taller. She swallowed and attempted to look composed, fighting the urge to take a step back.

  Outside of the village, away from the clamor and the press of bodies, she realized how very cold it was. Without the shield of buildings, the wind buffeted her, whipping her skirts around her ankles. Shivering, she burrowed into her cloak.

  It wasn’t only cold. It was . . . lonely. It felt like they were the only two people on earth even though the village bustled just beyond, its din a distant murmur.

  Here, in this moment, it was just them and the wind and the crack of branches beneath the weight of snow.

  Flurries fell lightly, dusting his shoulders and clumping on the dark fabric of his coat. Big shoulders. She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. All of him was big. His body filled out his garments.

  She looked him up and down, eyeing every filthy inch of him warily. Staring up at this large bearded man, the realization that she belonged to him now sank in slowly, deeply . . . terrifyingly.

  She fought to hold her ground and not back away. Not run screaming into the village as the weaker side of herself urged. How had she ended up here? In this place? This scenario? She had such different expectations for how this day would end.

  His blue eyes sparked, sharp and intent above the dark growth of hair covering the lower half of his face, and she suspected he knew the panicked edge of her thoughts.

  Silence throbbed between them, matching the pulse racing at her throat. She was bound to this man. She struggled to wrap her mind around that . . . struggled to deny it.

  His breath fanned like fog from his bewhiskered lips. He looked practically biblical. Like Moses emerging from the desert. He was fairly . . . fe
ral. A man capable of trapping and killing his dinner with his bare hands. His fine diction notwithstanding, there was a roughness to him that locked her jaw and shrank every pore in her skin.

  Even after Yardley returned from the navy he had not looked this virile. Indeed not. Her childhood friend was not as broad. Not as tall. In truth, five years in the navy did not overly change him. He did not look very different from the boy of her youth who lived next door to her. She doubted he could even grow a beard. And perhaps that was some of his appeal. His very familiarity, his lack of change, brought her back to far more pleasant and less grueling days.

  This man—this very un-Yardley type of man—could crush her.

  She swallowed against her tightening throat. He could drag her into the woods and she would be helpless to fight him. Her blows would rain uselessly.

  He was strapping. Young. At least younger than Mr. Beard who had celebrated his sixtieth year just this past Christmas. But not as young as her Yardley. Yardley was a boy compared to him.

  A fresh flash of anger shot through her. No. Not hers. He was not her anything anymore. Perhaps he never had been. If he’d been hers he would have been here for her and she wouldn’t be standing across from this man—this stranger—contemplating the ways he might destroy her.

  She groped for that elusive composure of hers and inhaled, catching a fresh whiff of the man who’d just bought her for fifty pounds. She winced and covered her nose.

  Say what you will but at least Yardley did not reek.

  They continued to assess each other. It reminded her of when the Beard family introduced Moody, their calico cat, into the household. The family hound and the cat had a stare-off that lasted weeks. Whenever Alyse entered the kitchen, they were always in their respective spots, glaring at each other with wild eyes, growling and hissing low in their throats, waiting for the other to make a move or sound. She did not know who she was in this situation—the cat or the dog. She’d always felt them equally matched. Currently, she did not feel equally matched. No, she felt quite pale in comparison to the man towering over her.

  “Your name is Alyse Beard—”

  “Not Beard. Not anymore,” she replied hastily. Not ever really. “My name is Alyse. Alyse Bell.”

  She had never felt like Alyse Beard. She was Alyse Bell. Always had been. Even if legally she was not.

  Now, she supposed, she bore yet another name . . .

  A name she didn’t even know. How strange was that? She didn’t even know the name by which the world identified her.

  He made a noncommittal sound. “Very well. Alyse Bell.” Apparently he was in agreement that they didn’t share a name either. There was that at least.

  He continued, “Don’t think this means anything. We are not truly bound to one another.”

  She opened her mouth several times but then closed it, bewildered, unsure how to respond. He was in possession of a bill of sale that said differently.

  A beat of silence passed before he added, as though sensing her confusion, “I am not your husband.” His gaze was almost cruel in that moment, eyes blazing a dark blue in the obscurity of his unshaven face, like a dark loch, promising untold secrets. “Let us be clear. You are not my wife.”

  Chapter 5

  And the dove blinked, rotating and testing her cramped wings within her new cage.

  There was no misunderstanding his words, but that did not lessen her confusion.

  He’d bought her like a sack of grain, and he had a deed of sale to prove it.

  What kind of man bought a woman at auction, but did not want her?

  She was no longer Mrs. Beard. Like it or not, she belonged to this stranger. She was his even if he didn’t want her.

  “Doesn’t it, though? Mean something?” She moistened her lips. “There is . . . documentation. A bill of sale?” She glanced in the direction of the village. She could still hear Mr. Hines’s voice in her head, his words ringing in her ears. Sold!

  If that didn’t mean anything to him, then where did that leave her? Free? Dare she hope that he meant to let her go?

  Her hand moved to her throat, brushing the skin there. She could imagine she still felt the fraying rope, thick and choking, sawing into her skin. Staring at this man, she did not feel free. She felt trapped as ever.

  “Perhaps this rural little backwater may consider a wife auction a legitimate method to marry two people.” She could hear the sneer in his voice. “But I assure you, the civilized world will not recognize what a bunch of provincials deem a wedding.”

  She bristled. Pride stiffened her spine. He uttered the word provincials like it was something dirty on his tongue. She was certain he considered herself one of said provincials. He might as well have called them all idiots. She didn’t know whether to be insulted or relieved. Relieved, she supposed, if he did not consider this arrangement binding and it gained her freedom.

  She resisted pointing out that her father had been a schoolmaster and that she had been reading and writing and speaking French quite well by the age of five. She might not have traveled outside this little hamlet and she might be as poor as a church mouse but she was no idiot. She kept that to herself, though. Let him think her a provincial. Someone of no value. She didn’t want to persuade him into keeping her.

  “By all means, if you think you have no obligation to me, don’t let me keep you.” She motioned in the direction of the snow-draped road even as her mind feverishly started working through what she would do once he left her here. Specifically, how could she acquire the funds to reach London? And assuming she did, how would she subsist there while she looked for employment?

  Mr. Beard didn’t want her anymore. He’d made that abundantly clear. Even though he’d made a pretty penny selling her she knew he would not part with any of it to help her. Mrs. McPherson flashed across her mind. The widow would likely take a broom to her if she even spotted her approaching the house. She’d clearly staked her claim on Mr. Beard and she did not want Alyse lingering.

  Nellie would want to help but it was doubtful her young husband would permit it. As apprentice to the blacksmith, they could barely fend for themselves. Also, they had another baby on the way. Alyse couldn’t burden them.

  Her Not Husband narrowed his eyes. He considered her for a long moment, his expression dark and brooding, impossible to read.

  Alyse waited for him to mount his horse and leave her, certain he was on the verge of doing that very thing.

  “I did not say I have no obligation to you. I accept my responsibility,” he finally said, his blue eyes as grim and solemn as an undertaker.

  And she, presumably, was a responsibility?

  “What does that mean precisely?” she asked distrustfully. He’d dismissed the legitimacy of their union, after all. What did he consider them to be if not man and wife?

  “We can work out some manner of arrangement. Is there somewhere you would like to go? Do you have any family . . .”

  “To foist me upon?” she finished bitingly.

  He hesitated before nodding. “In a manner . . . yes.”

  She resisted pointing out that if she had any family to rely upon she would never have found herself at the center of a wife auction. He did not know anything about her, though. For all he knew, her family was the kind that gladly let one of their own be sold in a sordid public display.

  He didn’t know she was an orphan. He would not know she’d had loving parents once upon a time who were rolling over in their graves because she was in a predicament such as this. The thought of her parents was almost enough to undo her.

  She took a shuddering breath and tried not to think of them. “No. I have nothing. No one.” She pointed at her valise on his horse and wondered why it stung her pride so much to admit that to him. Her pride had already suffered such a thorough stomping today. She did not think it could still feel anything.

  She had been wrong.

  “That is everything,” she added. “My life is in that bag.”

&n
bsp; He stared to where she pointed, his forehead furrowing. “No friends or—”

  “No one,” she snapped.

  He digested that and asked, “Then is there somewhere I could escort you?” Even as he asked, his eyes glittered with frustration. Perhaps anger. He didn’t want to be here with her. Her chin went up a notch higher. Well, that made two of them. “Some place you would like to go?”

  Where she would like to go? As though it was that simple. As though her life was full of so very many choices?

  “I should like to go to London.” Since he was asking, she might as well be honest.

  He winced. “I’ve come from there and I’m not going back. At least not any time soon.”

  She laughed once roughly, the sound pulling at the back of her throat. That would be her luck. He came from the place she most wished to go. “Any place then. Preferably a larger city.”

  Somewhere she could lose herself. So that she might find herself.

  He gave his head the slightest shake. “So am I to understand you have nothing? No distant relations? No funds?”

  She fidgeted. “Yes.”

  “So I could take you somewhere but there would be nothing waiting for you once you arrived there.”

  Was he saying this so that she could feel . . . better?

  She held his stare, knowing she was soliciting his pity and hating him right then. She suspected she had already done that once today when she stood on a block wearing a halter. Her dignity begged for a reprieve and she didn’t want him feeling obligated toward her. “Yes,” she answered slowly. “That would be true, but I can fend for myself.”

  “Can you?” Skepticism laced his voice. He crossed his arms as though he really were seeing her. Seeing how very pathetic and alone she was and she despised that.

  She squared her shoulders, trying to look more. Bigger. Stronger.

  He scanned her, unmoving. “Have you any skills that would make you desirable for employment?”

  She angled her head sharply and suppressed a snort of derision. “You were at the auction, were you not? I think you heard the extolling of my attributes.”